Do You Need Bandwidth on Demand?

By: John Shepler

When you order a bandwidth service, you are expected to know the bandwidth your network requires and select the best option to deliver it. But, what if your requirements are somewhat fuzzy or subject to change? What if you are moving from an in-house IT data center to cloud computing or cloud communication services? What happens if you get it wrong?

The Limitation of Standard BW Services
Traditional line contracts are for a fixed amount of bandwidth for a set number of years. A DS3 bandwidth connection gives you 45 Mbps bi-directionally at all times. You have the security of knowing that the line speed will be there when you need it. You are also paying for the line to sit there doing nothing when you don’t.

Overprovisioning
This can lead to overprovisioning to ensure that you’ll never run out of capacity. You might only need half the capacity most of the year. Then the holiday rush hits and the network becomes congested at times. The worst situation is when you experience a sudden unexpected wealth of new business and you can’t serve the customers… because you don’t have the capacity.

Making Changes is Slow
When things start to pick up, you can order more bandwidth and keep your fingers crossed that it will be in place before your current line starts to sputter. That’s a problem with traditional telecom services because they are so specific. A T1 line is 1.5 Mbps, a DS3 connection is 45 Mbps, an OC-3 fiber service is 155 Mbps. There is a big gap between service levels and it takes equipment changes to move from one service type to another. That can translate into weeks and even months to make a change.

The Ethernet Advantage
Carrier Ethernet offers a lot more flexibility. If you have a Gigabit Ethernet port installed, you can order 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps, 400 Mbps or some other bandwidth and know that you can upgrade quickly when needed. A GigE port will run at any speed up to 1000 Mbps. You have the option to both upgrade and downgrade your service with just a phone call to your provider. How long does this take? Since there are no equipment changes needed, you may be looking at anywhere between a few hours and a few days max.

Consider Your Port
Of course, you’ll need to think ahead just a bit to know what size port to install. They are typically one of the standard Ethernet speeds of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps and 10 Gbps. It’s also possible to get a 100 Gbps port installed in certain locations if you really need this much capacity. Most business users need a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet port or a 1,000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet port.

Bandwidth Bursting is Better
Additional flexibility is provided by a feature called “bandwidth bursting.” Bursting means that you have some ability to get extra capacity automatically on a short term basis. Not all line services offer this ability. It’s more typical on MPLS IP VPN networks. The capacity is already available on the network. You are simply paying for a committed information rate (CIR). It you need more, you get more and simply pay for the excess used during the month.

Bandwidth on Demand For The Most Flexibility
Bandwidth-on-Demand takes this idea a step further. This is a dynamic network design that can give you more capacity on the fly. You don’t have to plan ahead or settle for a “best effort” by the provider. Bandwidth-on-Demand gives you extra capacity on the fly at the quality of service (QoS) level you’ve pre-selected. XO Communications, a worldwide leader in WAN bandwidth solutions, is offering this service for organizations that need to accommodate unanticipated capacity needs. They are promoting it especially for cloud and multi-cloud service environments.

What Do You Need Now?
Could your operation benefit from Bandwidth-on-Demand, burstable bandwidth or easily scalable Ethernet bandwidth? Get quick quotes and recommendation on flexible bandwidth solutions now.


Note: Image of Gamma Ray burst courtesy of NASA on WIkimedia Commons.

How MPLS Network Bursting Provides Flexibility

The usual way to order bandwidth for last mile connections or MPLS networks is to commit to a given rate or line speed. You may order a T1 line and you’ll get 1.5 Mbps continuously. Order a 10 Mbps Ethernet service and you get 10 Mbps. On multi-tenant networks, like MPLS VPN, you pay for a committed information rate that sets the highest speed that your connection will run. But what happens if business conditions change or you simply guess wrong? Are you stuck paying for the wrong bandwidth for the life of the contract?

Not necessarily. In these volatile times service providers recognize that many companies need some flexibility in their bandwidth commitments. This is where the idea of bursting becomes attractive. Bursting basically allows you to exceed your committed bandwidth rate for short periods of time. This can happen during seasonal peaks like additional shoppers you didn’t plan on or a sudden increase in traffic due to having your company mentioned in the media. Bursting is also useful when you are adding additional locations for your business and haven’t factored the additional traffic into your bandwidth budget.

Who lets you burst? Some providers offer this feature on their line or network services, some don’t. A traditional T1 line, for instance, runs at a constant 1.5 Mbps. You have exclusive use of all 1.5 Mbps whether you have traffic on the line or not. Whatever isn’t being used at a particular time sits idle. The same is true for DS3 at 45 Mbps or private line Ethernet services at, say, 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps. You can’t make a bandwidth service run any faster than its technical limitation, but you may be able to buy fractional bandwidth service with bursting capability up to the full limit.

Why would you do this? Perhaps you need about 20 Mbps on a rather steady basis, but occasionally that jumps up to 30 or 40 Mbps. You could simply order a 45 Mbps DS3 service and be covered for any contingency. Or, you could order a fractional DS3 at 25 Mbps with the ability to burst up to the entire 45 Mbps capability. The advantage of this approach is that you may pay less per month for the fractional service plus the excess bandwidth used when bursting that if you leased the entire 45 Mbps line.

This works especially well with Ethernet connections. The maximum Ethernet bandwidth is set by the port that is installed in your facility. If a Fast Ethernet port is installed, you can get any bandwidth increment up to 100 Mbps. If a Gigabit Ethernet port is installed, you can order any bandwidth increment offered up to 1 Gbps. Most carriers give you a wide range of bandwidths to pick from. Some even offer bursting options that present significant cost savings. If you find that your needs have increased so that you are always bursting, you can change your line service to a higher bandwidth. That may be much less expensive since the committed rate is cheaper than the bursting charges. Think of overage charges on smartphone data use. That’s very similar to how bursting works.

XO Communications has taken the concept of bursting to their MPLS IP VPN networks. As you know, MPLS is now the preferred way to connect multiple business sites together. There are big cost advantages over simply installing dedicated lines to each location. By using the multi-tenant MPLS network for most of the distance and only installing short last mile connects to each location, you have the advantages of high bandwidth connections at a considerable cost savings. You also have the option to tie all of your locations together in a many-to-many mesh network so that any location can easily communicate with any other. The network takes care of setting this up, you don’t need to make those connections at headquarters.

The core MPLS network has tremendous capacity. It is designed to support many simultaneous users at various classes of service without one user impacting another. You have the feeling that you are the only one on the network, even though there may be thousands of others. The network operator has to provide enough bandwidth to meet the committed rates offered to all it’s clients, even if they all decide to communicate at the same time. Excess capacity can be used to offer bursting to those clients who need it. With XO, you can commit to 100 Mbps but burst up to 1 Gbps. They discard the top 5% of traffic samples as anomalies and only charge you for the committed rate plus the excess rate that you have used during the month.

How about your business requirements? Are they rock solid or do you need the ability to rapidly and automatically respond to spikes in demand? There are great solutions available for both cases. Get competitive MPLS network and line prices now to compare with your current telecom costs.


Note: Image of Gamma Ray burst courtesy of NASA on Wikimedia Commons.

Differences Between Fiber and EoC

Many companies, constrained by their dedicated Internet and private line bandwidth, are doing the trade studies necessary to justify a move to fiber optic services. Now they have another option to throw in mix. It’s Ethernet over Copper or EoC.

Just what is it about EoC that presumes to place it in the same category as fiber optics? Perhaps surprisingly, it’s both bandwidth and cost.

Traditional fiber optic services are based on the SONET or Synchronous Optical NETwork standard developed by the telephone industry. SONET services start with OC-3 at 155 Mbps. This is 3x the speed of DS3 or T3 service. More importantly, SONET was designed to be compatible with T-Carrier standards so that T1 lines and DS3 services can be readily transported on SONET. It is common practice for these copper-based services to hitch a ride on fiber optic carriers for long haul connections.

The beauty of fiber is that it has nearly unlimited bandwidth potential. When fiber optic cable is brought in, it’s not just a small diameter cable with a couple of fiber strands. There are almost always dozens if not a hundred or more fiber strands in that cable. Why? Because the big cost is in the construction. Trenching underground, installing conduit and pulling the fiber cable is way more expensive than the difference between a very small fiber cable and a larger one.

How about the fiber bandwidth? Each strand can easily transport 10 Gbps or more. If you add coarse or dense wavelength division multiplexing to send multiple beams on each fiber strand, you can ramp that bandwidth capacity up by 10 to 100x. Future technology advancements may increase capacity even further. It’s clearly going to be a very long time before businesses start to “fill up” their fiber optic cable capacity... once they have it.

Therein lies the rub. The reason that almost 2/3 of business locations still don’t have fiber optic service is that the construction costs are overwhelming. You need to be reasonably near a carrier’s service and then pony up to have a drop run to your building and the termination equipment installed. More and more buildings are being “lit” for fiber optic service every day. Some day every business location will be pre-wired for fiber just like they are for telephone and electricity. That day may be well off in the future, however.

So, where does this option of EoC come in? One main selling point for Ethernet over Copper is that you may be able to avoid construction costs completely. The copper involved is nothing more than twisted pair telco wire that runs between your building and the telephone company’s nearest central office (CO). Residential lines typically contain 2 pair. Business cables can easily have 25 or more copper pair installed as a matter of course. Some of these are used for business telephone lines. Others can be used for T1 lines. Still others can be employed for Ethernet over Copper. What’s important is that your CO has EoC termination equipment installed.

Let’s say that you can get Ethernet over Copper service at your location. What’s available and what does it cost?

EoC carriers use up to 8 unused copper pair to provision your service. More pairs mean higher bandwidth. How much depends on the CO equipment and how long the copper run is. Within a few miles of the CO, you can generally get 10 Mbps, 20 Mbps, even as much as 45 Mbps over 8 pair. In some situations that can be pushed to over 100 Mbps if you are mere blocks away from the CO, which is not that unusual in metropolitan areas. The 45 Mbps level is popular because it is a direct replacement for DS3 bandwidth that is most often transported over fiber.

How about the cost? EoC is typically half the cost of T-Carrier or SONET bandwidth or you can get twice the bandwidth for the same money. For instance, many smaller companies are upgrading to 3 Mbps for the same price as their older 1.5 Mbps T1 line. In addition to lower monthly lease prices, construction costs are minimal to zero compared to new fiber construction.

EoC can effectively compete with lower level fiber optic services because many companies have been forced to make the jump from T1 to DS3 to OC3 because of limited options. Really all they needed was 10 or 20 Mbps, but those are not standard telecom line speeds. Ethernet services are far more scalable, with increments of 1 or 5 Mbps rather than large jumps. You can often increase your service bandwidth by simply making a phone call to your provider. No equipment changes are necessary as long as you are below the maximum port bandwidth.

Should you be considering EoC in place of fiber optic services? Get current pricing for Ethernet over Copper and Fiber as well as SONET optical services to see what works best for your business location.

Increasing Bandwidth By Pair Bonding

If you have a bandwidth service, say a T1 line, and are starting to run out of bandwidth, then what is your next logical move? You could bring in a higher level service such as DS3, but that could prove tricky. Your T1 line is delivered over twisted pair copper. DS3 is generally brought in using fiber optic cable. Also, there is a tremendous jump in bandwidth and expense from a T1 line at 1.5 Mbps to a DS3 connection at 45 Mbps. Are there other options?

Perhaps the easiest move up is to simply add another T1 line if all you need is incrementally larger bandwidth. If you get both your lines from one carrier, they can do what is called “pair bonding” to make the two lines act like they are one larger line. For instance, two bonded T1 lines give you 3 Mbps. That goes to 4.5 Mbps with 3 lines and 6 Mbps with 4 lines. A practical limit to bonding for T1 is somewhere around 10 to 12 Mbps.

There is also another form of pair bonding you should be aware of. Instead of bonding T1 lines with their DS1 signals, dry copper pair can be leased with no signals of any type. They’re just plain copper wires running from a central office to a business location. Using multiple copper pair with special terminal equipment installed at each end, Ethernet over Copper or EoC can be provided by competitive carriers.

Ethernet over Copper uses a completely different form of modulation to transport the digital signals from provider to customer. Advanced techniques such as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) may be employed to reduce interference between signals on pairs bundled in the same cable. This allows more bandwidth to be transmitted using fewer wires than would otherwise be required.

The result is that Ethernet over Copper can transport higher bandwidth services using pair bonding. You can typically get 3 Mbps to 10 Mbps from EoC services. In some cases, that can be increased to as much as 50 Mbps. The higher the bandwidth, the closer you have to be located to the telco office. That’s because the techniques used to increase bandwidth are affected by distance. The signal fades as you get farther away from the source.

T1 lines don’t have this distance restriction, as the technology was designed to incorporate regenerators every mile or so to boost the signal. If you are located too far from the carrier’s point of presence to get Ethernet over Copper, you may qualify for Ethernet over DS1. That’s a technique that uses the T1 line protocol to transport Ethernet. You are essentially getting an Ethernet signal delivered using one or more T1 lines. In this case T1 pair bonding can be used to increase bandwidth.

Will some form of pair bonding get you the business bandwidth you need at a reasonable price? Find out what business bandwidth services are available for your location now.

My MPLS Network Can Beat Up Your Frame Relay Network

When it comes to interconnecting multiple business sites, you have a choice in technologies. Popular options include point to point dedicated T1 lines with corporate headquarters in the center of a star network, VPN over dedicated Internet connections, Frame Relay networks or the newer MPLS networks. Now, how to choose?

The Internet VPN approach is popular because of its relatively low cost, especially when you need to connect to many traveling or working from home employees. You implement it with a software application that encodes your data while it traverses the Internet. Performance is hit and miss, as is the Internet. Even with encoded packets, the lack of security on the Internet makes IT managers a bit squeamish when it comes to sending the most sensitive company data through these connections.

Point to point T1 or DS3 connections are inherently more secure, as you lease the entire capacity of the channel for your exclusive use. These are nailed up connections that simply idle when you are not sending data. You can also encode your data with a VPN solution for the ultimate in security. But there’s a price to be paid, and that is one of higher cost.

Cost is what Frame Relay networks were designed to address. A Frame Relay network is a privately run network that only serves its clients. There’s no access for the general public. You access the network through a FRAD or Frame Relay Access Device. This specialized hardware sends your data through PVCs or permanent virtual circuits. These are assigned paths through the network cloud that only connect endpoints you specify. In addition to limited access, the assignment of PVCs creates a level of security well beyond what you have in a piblic network. You can also encrypt your data to make it extra secure.

Frame Relay networks were designed to interconnect computing centers before the age of the Internet. The frame takes the place of the Ethernet packet. Network speed is typically in the range of 56 Kbps to T1 speeds of 1.5 Mbps.

An upgrade to the Frame Relay concept is MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching. Like Frame Relay, an MPLS network is privately run and serves only subscribing customers. Also like Frame Relay, access is through a specialized piece of equipment known as a Tag Router. Your packets, which can be data, voice, or video, have “tag” attached to them as they enter the network. All routing is done using the tags. Just about any protocol may be transported on this tagging system. Class of service can be specified through the tags to ensure that real time protocols avoid any delays. You may also choose to encrypt your packets for extra security.

MPLS networks can run at any network speed and are being adopted by major carriers as the multipoint to multipoint technology of choice. For this reason, MPLS is fast replacing Frame Relay. For new applications in connecting multiple sites nationwide or even worldwide, MPLS is generally your best choice. With competition in the carrier market for this business, prices may be more attractive than you would expect. How good are they? Find out with an MPLS Network price and availability check now.